The world news sites are reporting there is a new virus in China that keeps on mutating and spreading every day.
There seems to be considerable concern because some people are dying while many more are getting sick.
The concerns is how fast this thing is spreading.
How much do you know about this virus? Do you feel that you know enough so that you know there is not much need for concern?
Or are you taking any steps to keep yourself healthy?
We’ve just returned from vacationing in the Caribbean. I spiked a fever and had severe diarrhea for a few days after getting home, now my gf has a fever and cough. I’m sure we both just aquired viruses while sitting on a broken plane (shoutout to American Airlines).
I’m not worried. Hell, I’ve lived this long.
I’m supposed to accompany my husband on a business trip to Beijing in April, and I don’t particularly want to go. This virus thing is not helping.
I know as much as anyone who’s not intensively researching it. And anyone who thinks they know enough to know there’s not much need for concern is an idiot.
It’s a new variant of a virus. It is deadly in at least some cases. Hard to know how deadly since it’s not been known for long and since China is not exactly a reliable reporter. But they are not shutting down holiday travel for millions of people based on nothing.
It doesn’t look like the start of a new Spanish flu though, so I’m not stockpiling food.
Not any more than everyday. What do you think people who realize this is a potential pandemic should be doing? I think they should merely pay attention to the news and if at all possible avoid travel to places with known cases.
It’s tragic for the individuals who have died from it, dire for those who are confirmed infected, and worrisome for those who live in Wuhan. But for the general mass of humanity around the globe, this is an isolated thing - and disease prevention organizations are swinging into action to prevent it from becoming a widespread pandemic. If it spreads, I fully expect that these organizations will increase their efforts.
At present, I’m not worried for the safety of anyone I personally know.
No more than I’ve done in any other year. I wash my hands before eating, including at restaurants. On an upcoming flight, as soon as I sit down I will sanitize my armrests, tray table, and seat belt with a disinfecting wipe, just as I’ve been doing for several years; and I’ll open the overhead vent to shower my face with fresh, HEPA-filtered air, helping to keep unfiltered air from disease-ridden fellow passengers away from my face.
I have no qualifications to advise you whether to go or not to go. But if I was you, there is no way in Hell that I would go. At least, I’d wait a week or two and see how this thing develops. As it stands, it seems quite terrifying to me.
I fully agree with both opinions you have stated. This virus is one of the scariest that has happened in a very long time. Since so many people seem to be downplaying the possible problem, I am paying very close attention and I have an appointment with my doctor in a few days and I will ask if there are any medications I can stock up on. I will let you know what he says.
In addition, there are several doctors who post on this site. One of them (I believe his name starts with an “S”) often discusses natural remedies. If I can find out who he is, I will indeed ask his opinion on things we can do to prevent health problems.
BTW, a flu shot would be a real good idea.
AAMOF, I’m guessing he will post to this thread and I look forward to hearing what he has to say.
I am not a medical professional - not by a long shot. But it seems to me there are two categories of activities ordinary folks can do.
The first is not to take any extraordinary foolish chances - such as inviting strangers or friends who seem to be sick to come and stay with us for a few days. Other extraordinary risks include doing things for the first time that are inherently dangerous - such as: skiing or snow boarding. This would seem to be a bad time to try any of these things for the first time.
The second category of things to do is to prepare by stocking up on certain kinds of medications (like antibiotics) or other products that may become hard to get if many people begin to get sick. I’d also consider what I would need to have in order to stay indoors for a week or so at a stretch.
I certainly don’t want to alarm people. But if it turns out this viral outbreak becomes a serious health problem, I think it might be a good idea to acquire certain products now if we believe they may become hard to find if this problem should become an epidemic.
Please understand, all of my opinions are no better than mere guesses.
Both of these practices seem like excellent ideas to me. Thank you.
Wuhan and now Huanggang, Ezhou, Chibi, and Zhijiang as well. It doesn’t help, of course, that as soon as a quarantine/travel restriction is announced a lot of people suddenly have the impulse to get out of Dodge (or Wuhan, or Huanggang or Ezhou or Chibi or Zhijiang). It’s completely understandable, but not helpful.
And this is the case for those of us outside the affected cities, or not having recently spent time on an airplane with someone suspected of having the virus.
At this point it’s impossible to really know how bad this is or is going to get. We’ve had SARS and Ebola take plane trips to other continents but have not had pandemics or metastasizing epidemic hot spots. Airports with a lot of international/intercontinental travel are being monitored and travelers screened. These are all positives. We have means of monitoring, tracking, and responding to infectious diseases that didn’t exist a hundred years ago.
That said - there’s considerable difference between “infectious diseases”. A cold virus and SARS both spread in similar ways, but one is much more serious to actually catch. My completely lay-person, non-authority, wild-ass guess about this is that it is at least as serious as a bad flu virus. Is it worse than that? I have no idea
I have sent a Private Message to a few people who I think may be doctors to ask for some advice.
I seem to recall there is someone who posts on this board who posts some medical advice that has always seemed most excellent to me. Unfortunately, I cannot remember their name. All I can remember is that it may start with “C” or “S”. Anyone have any suggestions?
Wash your hands more frequently, postpone trips to China and the Far East and maybe delay those plans for a chicken coop. But at this point, awareness and not panic seems to be in order.
And if you are the president of Madagascar, close the ports.
Based on some numbers I looked up last night, I think the flu typically has a mortality rate of about 0.002 percent, whereas the current Wuhan virus is more like 1%. The 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic was more like 20%, but of course hygiene and health care standards were much lower 100 years ago, which may have had something to do with it.
Ebola is about 90%.
I’d say this is the scariest thing that’s happened since the last time it’s happened.
Are you old enough to remember the Bird Flu scare around 2000? The Ebola scare in the nineties? The AIDS scare in the eighties? The Swine Flu scare in the seventies? The Andromeda Strain scare of the sixties? (Okay, that last one may not have actually happened.)
This is not the first time we’ve had reports of some new disease arising and killing people and some people begin projecting the danger into the collapse of civilization or even the end of humanity. But what’s always happened is that the disease hits a peak and then we get it under control. It becomes just another thing that some people die of; tragic for those people and their families but not a threat to humanity as a whole.
It’s my understanding that only direct flights are being monitored at this time. So all the people who have a layover and don’t leave the airport are going unchecked. This concerns me deeply as China -> USA is a long flight and not likely to be direct.
The latest DNC Ebola outbreak had about a 64% mortality rate if we limit it to the confirmed cases. We are getting better at treating and controlling it, and there are multiple strains.
IANAD or an epidemiologist, but I have more than the average lay person’s understanding of these things. A virus that has evolved recently is more likely to evolve again in the near future. This can make it more or less dangerous, but evolution tends toward increased propagation.
China’s reaction is scaring many people as they have been poor responders/reporters in the past. But they also took a major hit for their delay in reporting on SARS, and relationship-building has been a strong priority in the medical community since then. So I think it may be that this reflects a change in approach, rather than an increased threat. China’s response to the coronavirus shows what it learned from the Sars cover-up | Thomas Abraham | The Guardian
I do fear what may happen if it reaches the US, given the anti-science attitudes of the current administration. There is reason to worry that our government will act slowly, preferring denial and prayer to prevention and preparation.
Sars, Swine Flu, Bird Flu, Spanish flu, and the list goes on and on. The more we globalize, the more these diseases will spread. It’s been going on since forever. Concerned, yes, but it’s a fact of life we just have to accept.
Fuckin’ A right… Plague Inc. taught me that much, at least.
I think you’re letting the breathless news coverage get the better of you. Right now, there’s no evidence, even in the news stories, to indicate that this virus is either more deadly or more communicable than say… the commonplace influenza virus, which nobody really freaks out about.
Part of the issue is that nobody trusts the Chinese government, so the information we’re getting is not reliable, so that fuels fears. It’s probably too early to start worrying about a pandemic- there’s no evidence of that yet.
That said, I wouldn’t go to China anytime soon.
Somebody mentioned flu, that doesn’t really apply. Wuhan is a coronavirus, and they have extremely problematic in the past.
Interestingly, it’s been reported that shares in NovaVax have jumped significantly in response to the news. NovaVax developed vaccines for SARS and MERS (both corona viruses) but both diseases were quashed by containment before the vaccines got to human trials. There have been coronavirus vaccines approved for animals, but it’s been shown that they can result in an immune-system cascade which itself kills the patient when the virus is encountered. Nobody knows yet whether this will occur in humans. It’s the very first vaccine that would give me pause in just jumping to get inoculated.
Fuckin’ A right… Plague Inc. taught me that much, at least.